


Like breathing

by kelark59



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: 30 Day OTP Challenge, F/F, Fluff, Humor, Multi, genderswap AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-09-30
Packaged: 2017-12-27 19:23:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/982669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kelark59/pseuds/kelark59
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the 30 Day OTP Challenge, set in an AU where everyone is the opposite gender.  You should read this for several very good reasons:<br/>1. Lesbian Stony<br/>2. Lots of other awesome pairings thrown in for shits and giggles<br/>3. Cute overload, fluffy fluff rot your teeth sweet<br/>4. I've been told that I have good comedic timing in my writing so yeah there's that<br/>5. There may or may not be sex in a few of the chapters you'll have to read it to find out but don't tell my mom please<br/>6. It would be a nice kick in the pants for my self esteem as a writer if I could beat my current record of 6 kudos on a piece<br/>7. Hey I love you and you look lovely in that shirt<br/>8. Read me, read me!<br/>(I swear to god my writing isn't as annoying as my personality)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Holding Hands

Stephanie came back to the tower around seven o'clock after her morning run, like she always did.  Since this happened almost every morning, what she found didn't surprise her in the least.

Bryce and Nathaniel were drinking coffee together at the kitchen table, Thor was glaring at the toaster impatiently, waiting for her pop-tarts, Claire was slumped on the couch snoring indignantly, and Toni was nowhere to be found.

"You guys seen Toni around?" she asked, unlacing her shoes and wriggling her feet a bit.

Bryce sighed, "She was still in her lab when I went to bed at four in the morning.  JARVIS, is she still down there?"  The AI confirmed her location, and Stephanie rolled her eyes and got in the elevator.

Toni was bent over a table messing with one of her suit's gloves, murmuring to herself and scratching at her head.

"You need a shower and some sleep," Stephanie commanded, and Toni jumped then whirled to face her, twitching nervously.  "When was the last time you came out of this lab?" Stephanie inquired softly, one hand going to Toni's hair and the other rubbing small circles on her girlfriend's wrist.

Tony cleared her throat.  “Came down at noon on Tuesday, not sure what day it is now,” she replied, running a slightly shaky hand through her hair and pulling a face.  “There’s motor oil in my hair,” she noted aloud.

Stephanie bit her lip.  “I should have checked on you sooner, I sort of assumed that Bryce was going to take care of you for me.  By the way, it’s Thursday morning,” she added, wrapping her hands around Toni’s.  “C’mon, let’s get you to bed,” she said.

It was a testament to how exhausted Toni was that she let herself be pulled off to bed without any complaint.  The feel of Steph’s hands wrapped warm around her own may have had something to do with it, because let’s be real, that felt nice.

“Your hands are nice,” Toni muttered as she collapsed on top of the bed.  Stephanie wrestled her shoes and jeans off of her, and snorted.

“No they’re not, I have really rough hands.  You need sleep,” she sighed, managing to maneuver the genius underneath the duvet with minimal resistance.

“Didn’t say soft, I said nice,” Toni yawned, and Stephanie smiled.  She knew she didn’t have nice hands, but if Toni wanted to think so, she would let her.

“Okay.  Hey, I love you.  And your hands,” she giggled, and Toni grinned brightly.

“Back at you, Cap.  Night... morning, whatever,” she hummed, and went to sleep almost immediately.  Stephanie decided that breakfast sounded nice and joined the rest of the team in the kitchen.


	2. Cuddling Somewhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost forgot to upload this! BUT I AM HERE NOW, NEVER FEAR.

“Toni, where are we going?” Stephanie asked for the fifth time, narrowing her eyes at her girlfriend, who was in the driver’s seat of the cherry red ‘73 Camaro.  Toni just grinned wildly at her and continued to drive them farther and farther out of the city.

 

“Hey, god, will you just trust me for a sec?  I know where we’re going.  I have a plan,” she chuckled, one hand holding the steering wheel and the other coming up to Steph’s face to rub her jaw affectionately, because Stephanie simultaneously hated it and thought it was cute.

 

Stephanie ducked her head out of Toni’s reach, grumbling.  “We’ve been driving for an hour, I just want to know,” she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest.  Toni laughed and kept driving.

 

When they finally came to a stop, Stephanie just raised her brows and wondered why Toni would bring her here.  “The sun hasn’t even risen yet, Toni, why are we at a beach?”

 

Toni rolled her eyes.  “Because we are.  Just don’t question it, okay?” she asked, and pulled the car into the sand slowly so it didn’t bounce up and get into the engine.  They sat on the hood together in the slowly brightening dark.

 

“My... my mom took me up here for my thirteenth birthday.  Dad was gonna come with us but he had work.  I didn’t care, I think she probably did though, which made me mad for some reason.  We had ice cream for breakfast and we watched the sunrise.  It was the last birthday I celebrated with my mom,” Toni explained softly, and Stephanie stared at her, because that was out of character.

 

“You okay?” Stephanie asked, and wrapped one of her arms around Toni’s shoulders, pulling her girlfriend closer against her and leaning her head against the shorter woman’s.  She repeated the question, and Toni looked at her, something in her eyes that Stephanie hadn’t seen before.

 

“I’m fine, Steph,” Toni said quietly.  Stephanie nodded and rubbed small circles on her arm.  She had no idea how long they sat there watching the shadows grow smaller and the water get the familiar gold glimmer of sunlight as waves rolled lazily into shore.

 

This was very nice, one of the nicest and most relaxed mornings Stephanie could remember.  Maybe the last one had been her sixteenth birthday, the last one before she became what was later known as ‘an orphan of disease’, but that had been a rough seventy five years ago, so it hardly counted.

 

And this one was still better, because she was with Toni now.  And really, that made everything better, if you asked her.  She fell asleep on the car ride home to the sound of the coast whipping in her right ear and her girlfriend singing along to AC/DC in her left, thinking to herself what an odd definition of relaxing she had.

  
Not that anyone would mention it if she went downstairs and knocked punching bags off their chains when she was sad, or if she thought Back in Black was relaxing, but only when it was sung slightly off key by mad genius billionaires.


	3. Gaming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I am so so sorry I didn't post this yesterday, but tomorrow is our ACT prep test, and I've been super busy, so today you get two chapters at once, plus since I feel so bad you can have my headcanons for what Tony and Steve look like in this universe as an additional apology. Also, I decided to change it up a bit and do this chapter from Toni's point of view. Please tell me what you think! I feel like hers is harder to write than Stephanie's is, because Stephanie's reactions to things are a little more predictable.

Toni wasn’t sure what was going on.  Was she drunk?  Maybe she hadn’t gotten enough sleep recently.  That was probably it, she was hallucinating from sleep deprivation.

 

“Steph?  Whatcha doing?” she asked, and Stephanie didn’t look away from the screen, just grunted in response.  Claire spared a small wave for a second before putting both hands back on the controller.

 

“Oh god dammit, Barton, did you just blue shell me?” Stephanie growled, and Claire smirked and then giggled.

 

“Looks like that’s what happened, yeah.  Don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear before, Stephanie.  It’s funny, like a little fluffy puppy growling at you,” she snorted, and Stephanie sighed heavily.  Toni was still trying to piece together the whole ‘Stephanie playing Mario-Kart’ thing.

 

“You realize, don’t you, that this little fluffy puppy popped Hitler in the jaw and fought front line in combat before women were even allowed to wear pants in public... why did Nathaniel show us this game?  It makes people so violent,” she muttered, shaking her head.

 

“Well, Bryce will never play with him, but he loves it so he’ll play by himself a lot.  Thor is back home in Asgard for a little while and so I’m lonely and bored and asked if he wanted to play, and he said yes.  Then you came in and asked what we were doing, and so he handed you his controller and- hey!  Really, cap?  I would have thought you were above this kind of brutality!” she wailed as her car skidded on a smug-looking banana peel.

 

Toni stared at them.  “You two are playing Mario-Kart,” she managed, and then blinked and snorted, “It figures that this would be Romanov’s fault.”  She ran a hand through her hair.  “Come and get me when you two are done, I’ll be in the kitchen, wondering when my girlfriend learned to use the Wii,” she said, turning and fleeing the room.

 

“God, feel like I was just in the damn Twilight Zone,” Toni muttered, and Bryce, who was sitting at the table, smiled at her and then looked back to her laptop.

 

“Uh, yeah, I get that feeling a lot when I’m around you people.  To what are you referring?”  Toni sat down and told her about the unnatural freak accident she’d just witnessed, and Bryce just cast her a grin.  “Well, hey, you want to go out and get dinner?  I have a feeling they’ll be going for awhile,” she said.

 

Toni opened and closed her mouth several times, then nodded and stood.  “Yeah.  Let’s go get dinner,” she said.  As they were leaving, Claire shreiked from the living room, “Oh come on!  That’s not fair, I demand another chance!  You cheated!  I don’t know how, but you did!”

  
Bryce laughed and hurried out the door.  “Come on, there’s almost always a fist fight after Mario-Kart, if we get out of here then we won’t get in trouble with Coulson or Pepper for watching them destroy the living room... or cheering them on,” she added, pulling Toni along after her.


End file.
